Has the White House Declared War on Russia?

This past week, America’s oldest continuously published weekly magazine, the Nation, asked the question: has the White House declared war on Russia?

As the two nuclear powers sabre-rattle over conflicts within Syria, and to some extent, over the Ukrainian crisis, asking these questions to determine who will pull the trigger first has become more paramount than it was at the peak of the Cold War.

The Nation’s contributing editor, Stephen F. Cohen, reported Vice President Joe Biden’s statement that the White House was preparing to send Vladimir Putin a “message” — most likely in the form of a cyber attack — amounted to a virtual “American declaration of war on Russia” in Russia’s eyes. Biden’s threat is reportedly in response to allegations that Russia hacked Democratic Party offices in order to disrupt the presidential election.

Chuck Todd, host of the “Meet the Press” on NBC, asked Joe Biden: “Why haven’t we sent a message yet to Putin?”

Biden responded, “We are sending a message [to Putin]… We have a capacity to do it, and…”

“He’ll know it?” Todd interrupted.

“He’ll know it. It will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact,” the U.S. vice president replied.

What are the effects of this kind of rhetoric when dealing with international relations? Western media decided to pay little attention to Biden’s statements, yet his words have stunned Moscow. As reported by the Nation:

“…Biden’s statement, which clearly had been planned by the White House, could scarcely have been more dangerous or reckless — especially considering that there is no actual evidence or logic for the two allegations against Russia that seem to have prompted it.”

The statements will not come without any measured response from Russia. According to presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russia’s response is well underway:

“The fact is, US unpredictability and aggression keep growing, and such threats against Moscow and our country’s leadership are unprecedented, because the threat is being announced at the level of the US Vice President. Of course, given such an aggressive, unpredictable line, we have to take measures to protect our interests, somehow hedge the risks.”

The fact that our media refuses to pay attention to the dangers of our own establishment in sending warnings to adverse nuclear powers based on unasserted allegations shows our media is playing a very dangerous game with us — the people. This attempt to pull the wool over our eyes and prepare us for a direct confrontation with Russia can be seen clearly in the battle for Aleppo, Syria.

As the Nation astutely noted:

“Only a few weeks ago, President Obama had agreed with Putin on a joint US-Russian military campaign against ‘terrorists’ in Aleppo. That agreement collapsed primarily because of an attack by US warplanes on Syrian forces. Russia and its Syrian allies continued their air assault on east Aleppo now, according to Washington and the mainstream media, against anti-Assad ‘rebels.’ Where, asks Cohen, have the jihad terrorists gone? They had been deleted from the US narrative, which now accused Russia of ‘war crimes’ in Aleppo for the same military campaign in which Washington was to have been a full partner.”

So where is this conflict headed? A top U.S. general, Marine General Joseph Dunford, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in September of this year that the enforcement of a “no-fly zone” in Syria would mean a U.S. war with both Syria and Russia. Hillary Clinton is well aware of the repercussions of this war, as she acknowledged in a secret speech to Goldman Sachs (recently released by Wikileaks):

“To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk — you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians… So all of a sudden this intervention that people talk about so glibly becomes an American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians.”

This is the same establishment that has been calling out Russia for allegedly committing war crimes in Aleppo even though Clinton’s proposal would result in far more civilian deaths and likely lead to a direct war with Russia.

As the war against Syria transitions into a much wider global conflict that could include nuclear powers Russia and China, our own media is deceiving us by dishonestly reporting on the events leading up to the activation of the doomsday clock.

History doesn’t occur in a vacuum; when the U.S. and Russia confront each other directly, it won’t be because of a mere incident occurring in Syrian airspace.

It will be because the two nuclear powers have been confronting each other with little resistance from the corporate media, which keeps us well entertained and preoccupied with political charades, celebrity gossip, and outright propaganda.